Reassure the Unsure
by LazyFlutist
Summary: She hated hospitals. And it was her fault that he was admitted to one. LloydxJules


**DISCLAIMER: I do not own Breakout Kings.**

She hated hospitals. They always made her very anxious when someone she knew was in surgery, or if someone was very ill, she'd panic about catching a virus while visiting them. The reason she was there in the hospital was of the first reason: someone she cared about was in surgery. With her purple scarf around her neck, she started to twirl the ends, still feeling the somewhat wet blood splattered against the cloth. She knew her hands would be bloodied, but she didn't care.

The shot still rang in her ears, her terrifying scream still coming from her mouth. _"Lloyd!" _She didn't dare close her eyes; she'd see him falling to the ground in his own pool of blood, a bullet in his chest. The rest of the team had surrounded the guy hours later after ditching both of them, and there she was, by the coffee place in the park, with someone dying by her side.

She never liked venturing out of her comfort zone, and she offered to take Lloyd around town, that was all. She just wanted some coffee—it wasn't her fault, was it? He was delighted with the idea!

_"Oh, you want to go out? It'll help with your disorder if you go somewhere you've always wanted to try, perhaps a new hot dog stand or a store down the street." _And she asked him to go with, because, for one thing, she knew the others would not like him being alone at the office. The other thing was because she wanted him to go along. _"Do you not trust me?"_

She glanced at the clock on the wall. It had been five hours since he entered surgery. The van for Maybelle came for the other two (she wondered if they even cared about his life) and the two men with her were talking in the corner, on their phones. She looked back down at the ground—she was right, her hands were bloodied. But she reflected on it.

There was nothing suspicious about the park. There were children around the park, playing with each other. Some were swinging on the tire swing, some were playing kickball. _"Julianne?" _She remembered looking at his face. Somehow, she trusted him. The other convicts, not so much, but she could tell there was some kind of soft side to him. But there had to be something more to that, right? After her incident with Ray, Julianne felt more attached to him. Perhaps the idea of someone actually wanting to help her won her heart, but she couldn't escape the thoughts that came every night and every day.

_"I'm right here,"_ he said to her, and she remembered him wrapping his hand around hers. How it felt—it felt amazing. His long fingers slowly closing against her hand, she couldn't deny that it was wonderful. He could tell she was nervous, too. _"There's nothing to fear, Julianne."_

_"I know," _she whispered.

Ray and Charlie, in the room, heard nothing and continued with their conversations. She didn't mean to say it out loud—then again, she didn't know she had. Julianne closed her eyes and saw it over and over again.

They ordered coffee, and when they reached the stand, their hands disbanded. Julianne rubbed her fingers together; she missed the touch already. _"Have you ever come here before?" _She shook her head.

_"No, but I've always wanted to come to this park," _she replied. He smiled—she always loved that smile. It was always sincere, nothing was hidden. He really liked being next to her. She felt the hot cup touch her open palm and she watched him grab his cup. The person behind the stand wished them a happy day.

Ray closed his phone and glanced over at Julianne.

_"Well, it is a nice day and you seem to be coping with your anxiety quite well," _she heard him say. She stared down at the coffee, then to him. He was only staring, nothing more. She blushed and smiled. They turned around to walk back to the office, to work on the case, but a man was standing there. They both knew who he was, and she could only stand there, with her hands wrapped around the cup.

Julianne opened her eyes and saw the hospital floor. She could feel her tears coming, and her lips were already trembling. A fit of fear came roaring back. _"Lloyd?" _She whispered out loud again.

Ray continued to watch, sometimes glancing at Charlie, who was still on the phone. She closed her eyes and went back.

_"Sorry little lady," _she saw the man pull out the gun; Ray watched her start to pant. He nudged Charlie and pointed at her. She heard nothing but the man's voice. _"but your journey to find me ends here," _he pulled the trigger, and she closed her eyes. All she felt was blood coming onto her, not from her. A masculine groan echoed through her ears; she opened her eyes. Her clothes were bloodied, her hands let go of the cup and tried to catch the man falling in front of her.

Julianne opened her eyes, staring at the hospital floor still, but she was trying to catch him again. "Lloyd!" She screamed out. Ray and Charlie quickly left their chairs and went to her side, kneeling on the ground with her. She had her palms on the ground, her head down. Her long hair fell and her scarf was on the ground. She noticed a lot of blood that was soaked up from his wound. Ray placed a hand on her shoulder, while Charlie had one on her back.

"Jules, snap out of it, you're safe with us!" Ray called out to her; she was still reliving the event.

She fell down with Lloyd, both of them on the sidewalk. She heard the coffee guy cry out for someone to call 911, and she rested him on the ground. There was blood everywhere, and she didn't care if her scarf's ends were lying in the blood with him.

Lloyd was squirming around in pain as she applied pressure onto the wound with her hands. The bullet had lodged itself near the heart, but closer to his shoulder. She could feel the blood come pouring out and seeping through the cracks of her fingers. _"Julianne, if I die…" _She shook her head.

Ray and Charlie didn't know what to do.

_"No, don't say that, you'll be okay,"_ she whispered. Lloyd's breathing was getting heavier and she was at her breaking point. She felt his hand rest on top of her hand, and she was calming down—but still panicking about his wound. His other hand was reaching for her face, which was concentrating on the wound—she looked in his eyes.

She didn't want to look away. _"No, Julianne, if I die…if I die, please know…know that I've enjoyed my time…my limited time with you…"_ he was rapidly blinking; she felt her tears quickly fall.

Ray and Charlie pulled back her hair and looked at her. She was crying, staring at the tiled floor in the hospital.

"Jules!" Ray flipped her hair back behind her shoulder and started to wipe her tears away. But she was still with Lloyd.

_"You'll be okay, and you'll have more time with me Lloyd, I promise! Please, you can't die," _she pressed harder on his wound; he flinched at the pain. But through it all, she glanced at his face and saw a little smirk.

_"The blood loss…is outweighing my life…Julianne….but I'll try….try for you…"_ she could hear sirens in the distance, and she was watching him start to close his eyes.

_"No, no, stay with me!" _She cried out. Ray and Charlie only heard her say it through a whisper. _"Come on, Lloyd! Fight it!" _She pressed harder down on the wound as the sirens came closer and closer. She saw him lean his head against her knees and had a little smile on his face.

_"I'm not a fighter…but…I'm fighting…" _he started to close his eyes; she started to break.

Her body on the hospital floor relaxed and she crumbled into her lap. The scarf smelt like his blood; her legs smelt like his hair; hell, her hands smelt like his hands. She knew where she was; she was in a hospital. Ray and Charlie were by her side (she didn't know how long they were there) and Ray was trying to hold her while Charlie was whispering something to her. But she didn't care. She just wanted to see him again, to hear his voice again.

Through the midst of the tears, the door opened; a surgeon came through the door. Ray and Charlie first looked at him, then Julianne. But she was afraid. What if he died on the table? What if she had to face his death? What would she do? She looked into his eyes and saw the look on his face.

0o0

She hated hospitals. Now she hated this waiting game. There he was, lying on a bed, with so many machines hooked up to his body that she couldn't count how many needles were sticking in his veins. The doctor had an uplifting look on his face and an uplifting tone to his voice. _"He made it through, but he'll need to stay in the hospital a few days before he can even go back to the prison ICU," _she heard him say.

But by the look of his body, he should be in the hospital for much longer. _"He should wake up in a few hours. Why don't I take you to him?" _She was the first one up and racing to the door; Ray and Charlie both gave a few sighs of relief. She didn't want relief; she wanted to see him. The doctor directed them to his bed (she was the first one inside to sit next to him) while Ray and Charlie talked to the doctor about what had been done through the surgery.

She didn't care about that stuff. She left that to the men that wanted to be there for her _as comfort_, but she didn't need any comfort. She just needed reassurance—it was different when he talked about reassurance and comfort. _"See, reassurance is different from comfort by—you know, maybe I can be your reassurance. You'll see it's different," _she rested her head on the back of her own hands on top of his and felt his pulse against her fingertips.

She needed reassurance, not comfort. Julianne squeezed his hand and started to feel the tears fall again—it was her fault. Had she not offered to get coffee, they'd be in the office perhaps, sharing stories about the outside world versus the prison life. "I'm sorry," she whispered.

She held onto his hand. She didn't want to let go or leave him alone—she knew she had to stay by his side until his release, at least. Ray and Charlie offered before they left, but she wished to be alone with him until morning. Julianne was a nervous wreck and couldn't find a way to sleep anyway.

Julianne felt the cold metal of the handcuff on top of her forehead. Reality sunk in—yes, he was a prisoner. But how she cared for this one prisoner…it was different. Every other prisoner that caught her eye was a scumbag and a disgrace to society. Yet here Lloyd was, lying in a bed, risking his life for her when she should've been shot—all because he valued the time they had together. She felt her hands starting to get wet; she didn't understand why he needed the handcuffs.

_Like he would get up and leave with all these machines strapped to him_, she thought. A little smile graced her face before she began to cry again, but the thought of him trying to escape somehow amused her. _"Convicts that try to escape from prison are seeking for a thrill but end back in solitary confinement. You'll just get more time added to your sentence when you're caught, and 25 years is long enough for me to stay out of that dark path."_

She closed her eyes and listened to the beeping noises coming from the machines. They were soothing, reassuring her that everything was okay and he'd be okay. He just had to make it through the night and everything would be fine. The small clattering noise from the handcuff barely made her think about him being in prison; he was a person. A genuine, sincere, caring person, and that's all she cared about. She kept them closed and fell asleep to the soft melody of the machines.

0o0

She suddenly woke; she heard the gunshot again. Her body tensed up, she let out a sharp gasp, her head shot up, looking around the room, panicking that someone was there to shoot her again…but she saw she was still in the hospital, with her hands holding onto the same hand as before, just tighter. She sighed in relief.

Her heart was racing. She knew she was in the hospital when she first woke, but hearing the gunshot…perhaps she was unfit to be near guns in the first place. Maybe that was why she shelled herself up in that one office, sitting in front of a computer, utterly bored sometimes because there is no one there to talk to but herself. And her thoughts are not helpful when they are all over the place, anxious about life and death each and every day.

She thought about the ups and downs of the job all the time. On one hand, she was back to her old job. On the other, she was constantly surrounded by convicts, both escaped ones and good ones, and constantly reminded by Ray that there was an off chance that some convicts knew of the location of the office. She hated that feeling.

But then there were days where she'd only think about the convicts that were helping them find those that escaped. Shea—he was something else. She'd seen them all, but he had a way with words that even she couldn't understand how he managed to do something like that. Erica was something she looked up to, but not quite like that. She looked a bit too rough for Julianne to admire (although she was afraid Erica could feel that someone didn't like her and beat the life out of Julianne). Then there was Lloyd, and she had too many confusing thoughts about him. Looking down at her watch on one of her wrists, Julianne noticed how tight his fingers held onto her hand.

It was early morning—a couple hours from now, Ray or Charlie would come into the room and tell her to go home, to get some rest. But here she was, seeing that he was holding onto her hands while she worried about what time it was. Had he been holding her hand since she fell asleep? Was he awake now?

His whole body started to shift; she looked at his face. "Nightmares cannot physically harm, yet they have a massive toll on the emotional part of us," he said to her. His voice was not the same, but he was still the same person. She sharply drew back one of her hands (the other was still being held onto) and twirled it around her scarf. Did he know what she was dreaming of? She tried to make sense of it all—maybe this was a dream.

She moved her free hand around the back of her hand and rubbed the sore parts in her muscles. Her hair moved with her arm and he made a comment about that as well. "You've never had your hair down before. It's a nice change for you," her hand started to slowly drift down her scarf again, and she bowed her head. Her eyes were hurting from crying so much, but now this was for joy. "Julianne?" _"Julianne?" _It was in the same tone as before—she missed it.

She closed her eyes. She remembered everything before the shooting, during the shooting, after the shooting…she was in the right place. Julianne let her fingers squeeze his hand; he did the same. But his hand started to move up, and the handcuffs stopped him. She saw his pointer finger trying to console her, trying to reassure her that everything was okay now, that she was safe and sound. She looked in his eyes and broke down again.

But it was for happiness. She wasn't sad anymore—if he was going to be okay, she would be, too. She made a rash decision, but she didn't care about rash decisions anymore—change was a good feeling after all. Julianne moved from the chair to the bed, with her arms cautiously wrapping around his neck. He groaned at the pain he felt from her hitting against his wound, afraid it would break open again, but he didn't care.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

"For what? It was my decision-" she buried her head into his shoulder more.

"No," she whispered, "I'm sorry I put you through all of that. I could've gone on my own, but I forced you outside with me because I'm afraid to trust anyone. I'm sorry," she kept repeating her apology. He knew he would forgive her, but he knew she was afraid that he wouldn't. So he reassured her the best he could—he wrapped his free arm around her back, holding her close.

"It's okay, Julianne," he closed his eyes as he whispered into her ear. She held on for dear life. _"I'm right here."_

**So, hey, I'm back, but this time, just a little K/T rating.**

**Nothing big. Probably a bit OOC, but nothing big.  
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**LOL So this was something I stirred up while trying to write another story of mine, but whatever. Uhhh, it's probably all over the place (and I may use the shooting scene for another story, buuuuuut I'm not saying it) and probably not my best writing out there, but I do like the ending.**

**It's quite nice.**

**Anyway, thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed it! **

**LF  
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**_Oh, and by the way, I didn't name the guy that shot him. Let's call him Bob._  
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